I am the only one of the five now
living, and so far as I know all five of the brethren remained true and
faithful to the covenants they entered into, and to the responsibilities
placed upon them at that time....

He [John Taylor] stated that many
of the things he had told us we would forget and they would be taken from
us, but that they would return to us in due time as needed, and from this
fact we would know that the same was from the Lord. This has been
literally fulfilled. Many of the things I forgot, but they are coming to
me gradually, and those things that come to me are as clear as on the day
on which they were given.

The credibility of the Lorin Woolley story
may be called into question on the basis that, of the five men purportedly
involved in the above-claimed transferal of priesthood authority, he was
the only one who recorded the event. Further, his widely publicized
recounting did not occur until 1929, long after the rest of those
supposedly involved were dead, and five years after Woolley himself had
been excommunicated from the Church. Where is John Woolley's account of
the alleged meeting and of his supposed reception of special priesthood
authority? Likewise, where is there such an account from Samuel Bateman or
from Charles Wilcken? What about George Q. Cannon, Joseph F. Smith and
John Taylor? Where are their records of these alleged proceedings?
Why is
there an account from only one participant, and why was that account not
written until forty-three years after the "fact"? Where in all
such pretensions is compliance with the divine law of witnesses?

The Lord has never permitted the keys of
priesthood authority to be transferred without requiring witnesses to bear
record of that fact. The law of witnesses stipulates that in the mouth of
two or three witnesses shall all things be established.1
The Savior said of his own authority: "If I bear
witness of myself, my witness is not true."2
The Prophet Joseph Smith likewise required witnesses. The
special mission of Oliver Cowdery as "Second Elder" was to bear
witness of priesthood restoration.3The investiture of priesthood keys by Joseph Smith upon the
Twelve Apostles was made known at a meeting of the Council of Fifty and
their wives in the spring of 1844. Many of them left written and published
testimonies of this event.4
Several testified of it many times throughout their lives.

Lorin Woolley and the Law of Witnesses

What of Lorin Woolley's story of priesthood
succession? Where are his witnesses, and where is their testimony?
Without
witnesses Woolley is without substantiation, and we are not obligated to
believe his testimony--it is not in force.

One logically wonders why the account was
not published earlier, when it could have been corroborated by witnesses.
Could it be that it was purposefully withheld until all those purportedly
involved were dead, because the story is fictitious and could not be
supported? The story apparently was not conceived until after plural
marriage ceremonies were being strenuously suppressed during the
presidencies of Joseph F. Smith and Heber J. Grant. President Joseph
Fielding Smith said of Lorin Woolley's claim:

No such meeting ever took place....
I knew
President George Q. Cannon, Samuel Bateman, and Charles H. Wilcken, and
they were true men and they were true to President Wilford Woodruff,
Lorenzo Snow and to President Joseph F. Smith. Lorin Woolley's stories are
afterthoughts uttered when all these men are dead and cannot speak
for themselves.5

The Woolley account may further be called
into question on the basis that Lorin Woolley impeached his reliability as
a witness by admitting that for a number of years he did not remember what
had occurred, although he contended that by 1929 he was able to recall
these events. This claim of forgetting and remembering was apparently a
device used by Lorin Woolley to justify in his own mind, as well as the
minds of others, a story that, as a comparison of the various versions
shows, grew and changed with each telling.

This forgetting and subsequent remembering
was declared as a divine sign of the truth of the story and was used as an
appeal to Daniel Bateman, who was persuaded to believe that he too had
witnessed the events of 1886 but that they were promptly taken from him.
Thus, when he corroborated Lorin Woolley's story in an account published
in 1934, he reports being told that "much of the instruction he [John
Taylor] was giving us we would forget, but that at the proper time it
would come back to us."6
Another account says:

He [Daniel Bateman] stated that the
prediction of President Taylor that all things would be brought back to
their memory in the proper time, had literally been fulfilled.7

On the strength of this alleged forgetting
and remembering process, Bateman was induced to testify of
"events" in which he was not personally involved,
"events" that Lorin Woolley only told him about. Appended to
Lorin Woolley's standard 1929 account is the following statement written
by Daniel R. Bateman:

I was not present when the five spoken of
by Brother Woolley were set apart for special work, but have on different
occasions heard the details of the same related by Brother Lorin C.
Woolley and John W. Woolley, and from all the circumstances with which I
am familiar, I firmly believe the testimony of these two brethren to be
true.8

Seven years later, Daniel Bateman admitted
that his own father never told him about the meeting. Joseph Musser
reported:

[Daniel R. Bateman] Bore testimony that
Mormonism is true. His father, being one of the five set apart, did not
tell him so, but did testify to Bro. Finlayson of the fact, and the
latter had written to him of the event. Others of the five had told him
and from their testimony and through the Spirit he knew it was true.9

With no second witness to the alleged
five-hour meeting where the important act of conferring special priesthood
authority is claimed, Lorin Woolley is left without witness and must of
necessity say of his own authority: "If I bear witness of myself, my
witness is not true.10-- And, according to the divine law of witnesses, we, as his
critics, can rightly charge: "Thou bearest record of thyself; thy
record is not true."11

Faithfulness to Covenants

Joseph Musser reported the following
statement in his 1929 version:

Then he (John Taylor) talked to us for some
time, and said: "Some of you will be handled and ostracized and cast
out from the Church by your brethren because of your faithfulness and
integrity to this principle, and some of you may have to surrender your
lives because of the same, but woe, woe, unto those who shall bring
these troubles upon you." (Three of us were handled and ostracized
for supporting and sustaining this principle.)

None of the five alleged to be recipients
of this special priesthood authority surrendered his life because of his
faithfulness and integrity to the practice of plural marriage in defiance
of the Church or the civil law; as admitted, though, three of the five--Lorin
C. Woolley, John W. Woolley, and Daniel R. Bateman--were excommunicated
from the Church for their actions in this regard. Let us review the
"faithfulness" of these three men in supporting and sustaining
this principle.

Daniel R. Bateman's youngest
sister gave the following testimony of her father and his reaction to the
Manifesto as it was presented at October General Conference in 1890:

There may have been a few in that audience
who did not vote, and a few may have remained away in order that they
might not commit themselves. But father and mother were at that conference
and they voted to sustain the manifesto....

More than once I heard father say before
other members of the family that when he went to that conference he and
some of his friends who had suffered exile and imprisonment had determined
to vote against the manifesto. "But," said father, "some
power not my own raised my arm, and I voted to sustain President Woodruff
in this matter. As soon as I had done it a sense of peace and contentment
came over me."12

As an illustration of her father's later
abhorrence of those who defied the Manifesto, she told of a friend of her
father who, after it was issued, approached her to become his plural wife:

He said polygamy was not a dead issue and
that there were ways and means of carrying it on. He said when he saw me
that day on Main Street, God revealed it to him that I was to be his
plural wife. . .

When I went home and told my parents,
father swore an oath. He had been betrayed by a friend. When occasion
demanded, he could swear effectively, but rarely did he do it in the
house. This time he did, and he said he would speak his mind to so and so
when he saw him. Mother said nothing as usual, but she seemed to acquiesce
in what father said....

Father's oath that day meant much more than
his indignation over my affair. In conference assembled the people had
taken a unanimous vote to sustain President Woodruff s wishes. Here was a
trusted friend who had not only betrayed him, but the Church also. No
matter what his feelings had been before, and no matter what previous
pledges he had made either oral or written, that eventual pronouncement
which he sustained in conference made all other promises regarding
polygamy null and void. All father did and said in our presence bears this
out.13

Samuel Bateman seems to have had some
longstanding problems that were resolved before his death on January 23,
1911. One of the apostles reported:

By appointment met with Bro. Sam Bateman at
Bro. O. T. Arnolds. He has been trying to pull away from his brethren for
years. Now he confesses that one of the Twelve offended him twenty years
ago. He has paid his tithing and kept on with his quorum, but failed to,
or omitted to, partake of the sacrament. I talked to him as the spirit
gave me utterance and he said "I will amend my ways." Bro.
Bateman remarked, "My prayers have been answered. My labors have been
successful."14

And so, with some repentance, he returned
to full harmony with the Church. Thus Samuel Bateman can hardly be alleged
to have stood firm to a covenant to see to it that plural marriage
continued after the Manifesto.

After his father's death, Daniel Bateman
began a close association with Lorin Woolley, his good friend, and began
practicing polygamy, which resulted in his excommunication from the
Church. His sister wrote:

From the very wording of the Manifesto it
was evident that some men and women could find in it a loop hole, an
excuse to carry on the practice of polygamy. They were few in comparison
with the many who had pledged themselves to live by President Woodruff s
advice and kept their pledges. The few did in secret marry other women
than the one they were legally entitled to.... For several years no
punishment was placed on these men by the Church. Some years later new
offenders were excommunicated, among them my brother, Daniel, who, during
the days of the underground, had helped guard the lives of the Church
authorities then in hiding. He had grown up in polygamy and believed in it
sincerely, but he did not enter it until after the death of his wife
Ellen. This was some twenty years or more after the Manifesto which he
did not support.15

Daniel Bateman's first wife, Ellen
Malmstrom, died on October 16, 1920, at the age of fifty-seven, leaving a
family of three children. Two years later, on August 1, 1922, he married
Ida May Barlow, the eldest daughter of his friend John Y. Barlow. Daniel
was sixty-five and Ida May was twenty-five, and they raised a family of
four children.16
Joseph Musser intimated at Daniel Bateman's death that
Bateman was also sealed to a polygamous wife, but that she had had no
children.17

If Daniel Bateman did indeed pledge in 1886
to "see to it that no year passed by without children being born in
the principle of plural marriage," as alleged, he certainly failed
its fulfillment in great measure. He would have been over sixty-five years
old when he entered the practice of plural marriage. This means that for
over thirty-five of his prime years he procrastinated fulfilling the
purported pledge, namely, that he. . . would defend the principle of
celestial or plural marriage, and that they would consecrate their lives,
liberty and property to this end, and that they personally would sustain
and uphold that principle.18

The whole reason for plural marriage,
according to the Lord, is to raise up a righteous generation more quickly
than can be done through monogamy. "For if I will, saith the Lord of
Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they
shall hearken unto these things [monogamy]."19
If Daniel Bateman did indeed take a plural wife, apparently
the act was fruitless so far as basic purpose is concerned, and even his
two legitimate families combined fell short in number of children when
compared to monogamous families of the time. Thus, he materially failed
his pledge as far as his personal life was concerned.

John W. Woolley, according
to available evidence, was never involved in the Fundamentalist movement
to the extent that is claimed. He was a faithful member of the Church
during most of his life. He was, however, one who was unwilling to give up
plural marriage after the Woodruff Manifesto was issued, and apparently he
never received a testimony of the Manifesto. He lived in polygamy during
his later years, but all of his families were reared before the Manifesto
was issued. He married the widowed mother of B.H. Roberts in 1886, four
years before the Manifesto, and he married Annie Fisher in 1910 when he
was seventy-nine, a marriage from which no children resulted.20
The issue of his personal fulfillment of the purpose is
therefore moot.

After being ordained a stake patriarch in
1912 by David 0. McKay, John Woolley performed some plural sealings in the
Salt Lake Temple and elsewhere, and when this was discovered he was
excommunicated from the Church.21Joseph Fielding Smith, a member of the Council of the
Twelve at the time, wrote of this action:

I was well acquainted with John W.
Woolley. He was a good man, but permitted himself to be drawn into the performing
of a so-called "plural marriage." When this rumor first
appeared, John W. Woolley was called into a session with the Council of
the Twelve, President Francis M. Lyman, presiding. Before that body he
denied that he had performed any plural ceremony and we accepted his word,
for we believed him to be a man who would not deceive the Twelve. President Francis M. Lyman reported to President Joseph F. Smith the fact
that Brother Woolley had been before the Twelve and that he had disclaimed
any association with those who were engaged in this traffic. My father
replied to President Lyman that he was very grateful to know that Brother
Woolley was clear, for my father had the utmost confidence in John W.
Woolley.

Some time later John W. Woolley was in the
presence of President Joseph F. Smith, and President Smith said to him,
"John, I am happy to know that you have not been involved in any of
those so-called 'plural marriages.' "John W. Woolley hesitated a
moment and then replied: "President Smith, I cannot lie to you.
I am
guilty." Then he confessed his wrongdoing. Of course action had to be
taken.22

Another member of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles, Elder John A. Widtsoe, was also present on this occasion. He
related the following:

I will tell you of an experience I had some
years ago. While in President Joseph F. Smith's office in Salt Lake City,
John W. Woolley came into the President's office and asked if he could
have a few weeks off from his work in the temple in order that he could
visit with his Brother Sam who was then president of the mission in the
South Sea Islands. I believe it was Samoa. Brother Woolley was a worker
then in the Salt Lake Temple. President Smith gave him the time off that
he wanted, and just as Brother Woolley was about to leave the President
said, "John, it has been brought to my attention that you have been
performing plural marriages in The Salt Lake Temple, is that
correct?" Brother Woolley, he said, rather hung his head and
answered, "Yes, President Smith, I have." President Smith then
looked directly at Brother Woolley and said, "Did President Taylor
ordain you and others to carry on plural marriage independent of the
Church?" Brother Woolley answered, "President Smith I have lied
to others about this, but I cannot lie to you as President of the Church.
No he did not."23

Shortly after this confession, several of
the polygamists for whom John W. Woolley had performed sealings were
summoned before the Quorum of the Twelve. Anthon H. Lund recorded the
following:

The twelve met on the case of Joseph Silver
who has married a plural wife. John Woolley having confessed to having
done the sealing. Silver like the rest who have done like he has done lied
about it and denied it. I told the door-keeper not to let John Woolley
come to the Temple until the matter is settled. We were shocked to hear
that a man working in the temple would dare to do such a thing. He is sick
today so he could not appear before the Council.

I spent the day in the office and in the
evening attended S. S. Board Meeting. Peter C. Peterson came in from
Ephraim and called God to witness that he spoke the truth! When he heard
that John Woolley had confessed he had not so much to say. He promised to
go with the brethren to see Brother Woolley, but instead of going with
them he got into an automobile and rushed up to see Brother Woolley.
Brothers Francis M. Lyman and Anthony W. Ivins found him there. They got
the evidence and Joseph Silver was cut off the Church by the Apostles.24

Several days
later, John W. Woolley wrote
the following confession:

At Centerville, Davis County, Utah on the
16th day of January, A. D., 1914, Prest. Francis M. Lyman and Anthony W.
Ivins called at my home, and in answer to questions asked, I made the
following statement:

Some months [ago] I met Mathias F. Cowley
on the street and he asked me if I was familiar with the sealing ceremony.
I told him I was. He said, "If any good men come to you don't turn
them down." I believed from that statement that it was still proper
that plural marriages be solemnized, and that President Smith had so
authorized Cowley to instruct me.[25]

Since that time I have married wives to
Nathan G. Clark, Joseph A. Silver, Reuben G. Miller, and P. K. Lemmon, Jr.
The ceremony in the case of Miller was performed in the S. E. part of Salt
Lake, the woman being a widow whose name I do not know. The Lemmon
ceremony was in Centerville, the name of the woman, I think, being
Johnson.26

Anthony W. Ivins recorded details of the
Lemmon case as follows:

March 1st, 1914.
In the Evening P. K.
Lemmon called at the hotel. I served notice on him to appear before the
Council of Twelve and show cause why he should not be excommunicated for
unlawfully taking a wife. He stated to me that Nathan G. Clark had written
him that if he wished to take a plural wife to come to Centerville where
he--Clark--would meet him at a house 2 blocks west. He followed directions
and went to the house of a young man named Woolley and told him what he
came for. The young man said there would be a man there soon to attend to
the matter for him.

Later an older man came to him and
performed the ceremony. After concluding the man told him that he must say
nothing about the marriage as they would both be excommunicated if they
were found out. He told the girl, as soon as they were alone, that he did
not believe it was a marriage at all, and it was all off.

He had never lived with the girl as his
wife and did not intend to do so until he had come to Salt Lake and
satisfied himself that the ceremony was performed by proper authority.
He
had never talked with bro. Cowley on the subject. He would appear before
the Council and make a full statement of the facts. He had met Bro. Musser
at the Fisher [home] some time ago and he had told him that Woolley had
given the whole thing away.27

John W. Woolley was so anxious to prevent
the Quorum of the Twelve from excommunicating him that he exposed men for
whom he had performed plural marriages in 1913, thus making their
excommunications certain. Why did he presume to perform plural marriages
so long after the President of the Church had forbidden it? Not because he
claimed to hold the keys of the priesthood, but because of a veiled
comment allegedly uttered by the disfellowshiped Matthias F. Cowley, who
in turn supposedly received his direction from the President of the
Church. (This has interesting implications, in view of the Fundamentalist
claim that John W. Woolley was Joseph F. Smith's superior in the
priesthood and held the keys of the priesthood.)

Lorin C. Woolley
is the star performer in the drama under consideration. One would expect
him to excel as an example of "faithfulness" and as a pillar of
"truth." Let us examine his personal claims and compare them
with the record:

March 20, 1870, I was called by President
Brigham Young to receive my endowments and was ordained an Apostle by
Pres. Young. Among other things he stated, "You will yet be called to
an important position in the Church," which promise I feel was
fulfilled, at least in part, by the mission given me by Pres. John Taylor,
in connection with four others, Sept. 27, 1886, to assist in perpetuating
the practice of plural marriage.28

Joseph Musser referred to this statement in
a brief eulogy of Lorin Woolley:

Lorin C. Woolley, the son of John W., was a
"chip off the old block." At thirteen years of age, he was given
his endowments and was ordained an Apostle by President Brigham Young; and
while he was never numbered with the Quorum of Twelve, he maintained his
Apostleship to the end.29

A check into Church records shows Lorin
Woolley's memory of his own personal statistics to be faulty, if not
presumptuous. On March 20, 1870, Brigham Young was in St. George, where he
had spent the winter as usual.30
He, therefore, could not have given Lorin Woolley his
endowment nor ordained him an apostle in the Endowment House in Salt Lake
City as alleged.

Church records show that Lorin Woolley was
born October 23, 1856, and was baptized by his father on October 18, 1868,
at the age of twelve. He received his endowment and was ordained an elder
on March 10, 1873, at the age of sixteen by John Lyon.31
As an elder he filled a mission to the Southern States
Mission from October 31, 1887, to October 6, 1889.32
Later he was ordained a seventy in the Seventieth Quorum at
Centerville, and he went on a short mission from December 23, 1896, to
April 6, 1897.33
On July 6, 1919, he was ordained a high priest in
Centerville. He was excommunicated from the Church on January 15, 1924,
and he died on September 19, 1934, at the age of seventy-seven.

Lorin Woolley made claims that he was an
undercover agent for both the Church and the United States government.
He
told of a dream discussion with President Heber J. Grant:

I asked him about his wives, telling him
who they were and when and where they were married. At this Heber seemed
greatly astonished and asked me how I knew these things. I stated I had
been set apart in 1874, at the age of 18, by President Young, to learn of
and keep track of such things for the protection of the brethren. Also
answering Heber's question, I stated I had been ordained an Apostle by
President Young at the age of 13. Heber said, "You are then the
oldest apostle, in point of years of service, in this dispensation."34

Joseph Musser reported further claims in
this regard in 1922:

Brother Woolley had been a Government
official and as such had learned many things about the brethren who are
now so pronounced against the principle of [plural marriage].35

In a letter dated January 18, 1924, Elder
James E. Talmage of the Quorum of the Twelve told a stake president about
Lorin Woolley's claims as an undercover agent for the United States
government:

I think you should be informed of the fact
that this Lorin C. Woolley has been brought to trial before the High
Council of South Davis Stake, aided by the advisory assistance of the
Twelve through myself, and that on Tuesday last he was excommunicated from
the Church, having been found guilty of pernicious falsehood.

As testified to by witnesses, he had
repeatedly stated that in his capacity as an officer of the United States
Government Secret Service, he had trailed certain of the leading
authorities of the Church, and knew of their having been guilty of
violating the Church rule and law against the practice of plural marriage.
Last night I had conversation with the Chief of the United States
Government Secret Service, and he positively denies that Lorin C. Woolley
was connected with that service in any capacity whatsoever; and, moreover,
he further intimated that he may have to proceed against Woolley for
making any such claim.36

Isn't that interesting!
Lorin Woolley was
excommunicated from the Church, not for advocating or living plural
marriage, but for "pernicious falsehood." Even the verdict of
his trial seems to have cropped up as an unpublished part of the Lorin
Woolley story. Joseph Musser's journal reveals:

Apostle John W. Taylor told Lorin,
"You are the one spoken of by my father who will be handled and
ostracized by the brethren. It will not be done because of your taking
another wife, but for talking," which was fulfilled literally.37

Apparently Lorin Woolley did not sustain
the pledge he is supposed to have made at the alleged meeting in 1886, a
pledge that he "personally would sustain and uphold that
principle." According to available records he did not take a plural
wife until 1932, over forty-six years later. He married a German
immigrant--Goulda Kmetzsch--on November 25, 1932.38
No children ensued from this marriage, apparently due to
Woolley's advanced age (seventy-five), so his entry into polygamy was
fruitless as far as purpose is concerned. Thus, like Daniel Bateman, he
totally failed his pledge to personally keep the principle alive. Here
indeed we have a paradox. Lorin Woolley was the very founder of a movement
which has as its basic tenet the continued practice of raising children,
in polygamous families, yet he totally failed to measure up to the rules
of his own making.

21.
Salt Lake City, Utah, March 30, 1914. The Davis Stake High Council Record
for April 25, 1914, lists: "Today by unanimous vote of the Council of
the Twelve Apostles John W. Woolley was excommunicated... for
insubordination to the discipline and government of the Church. Francis M.
Lyman in behalf of the Council."

22.
Joseph Fielding Smith to Dean Jessee, July 13, 1955.

23.
Statement Concerning the Purported Ordination of John W. Woolley,
statement deposited in the Brigham Young University Library Special
Collections by Lloyd Rine.

24.
Anthon H. Lund Journal, January 13, 1914. See also Anthony W. Ivins Diary,
Utah State Historical Society, entry at the end of the 19 13-1914 book.

25.
This allegation would have had no validity because Elder Cowley was
stripped of his apostleship in the Quorum of the Twelve in 1906 and was
disfellowshipped from the Church in 1911. Any authority from this source
would be presumptuous.